In England the House of Commons rejected parliamentary suffrage for
women. Incensed at the repeated chicanery of politicians who
alternately made and evaded their promises, a group of suffragettes
known as the "militants" resorted to open violence. When arrested for
damaging property, they went on a "hunger strike," refusing all
nourishment. This greatly embarrassed the government, which in 1913
devised the so-called "Cat and Mouse Act," whereby those who are in
desperate straits through their refusal to eat are released temporarily
and conditionally, but can be rearrested summarily for failure to comply
with the terms of their parole. The weakness in the attitude of the
militant suffragettes is their senseless destruction of all kinds of
property and the constant danger to which they subject innocent people
by their outrages. If they would confine themselves to making life
unpleasant for those who have so often broken their pledges, they could
stand on surer ground. The English are commonly regarded as an orderly
people, especially by themselves. Nevertheless, it is true that hardly
any great reform has been achieved in England without violence. The men
of England did not secure the abolition of the "rotten-borough" system
and extensive manhood suffrage until, in 1831, they smashed the windows
of the Duke of Wellington's house, burned the castle of the Duke of
Newcastle, and destroyed the Bishop's palace at Bristol. In 1839 at
Newport twenty chartists were shot in an attempt to seize the town; they
were attempting to secure reforms like the abolition of property
qualifications for members of Parliament. The English obtained the
permanent tenure of their "immemorial rights" only by beheading one king
and banishing another. In our own country, the Boston Tea Party was a
typical "militant outrage," generally regarded as a fine piece of
patriotism. If the tradition of England is such that violence must be a
preliminary to all final persuasion, perhaps censure of the militants
can find some mitigation in that fact. Some things move very slowly in
England. In 1909 a commission was appointed to consider reform in
divorce. Under the English law a husband can secure a divorce for
infidelity, but a woman must, in addition to adultery, prove aggravated
cruelty. This is humorously called "British fair play." In November,
1912, the majority of the commission recommended that this inequality be
removed and that the sexes be placed on